The sisters followed him into the dining-room.
"Don't shiver like that!" said Vera, "tell us why you've come in
here?"...
His eyes looked past them, never still, wandering from wall to wall,
from door to door.
"They're after me..." he said. "That's it--I was hiding in our cupboard
all last night and this morning. They were round there all the time
breaking up our things.... I heard them shouting. They were going to
kill me. I've done nothing--O God! what's that?"
"There's no one here," said Vera, "except ourselves."
"I saw a chance to get away and I crept out. But I couldn't get far....
I knew you would be good-hearted... good-hearted. Hide me
somewhere--anywhere!... and they won't come in here. Only until the
evening. I've done no one any harm.... Only my duty...."
He began to snivel, taking out from his coat a very dirty
pocket-handkerchief and dabbing his face with it.
The odd thing that they felt, as they looked at him, was the incredible
intermingling of public and private affairs. Five minutes before they
had been passing through a tremendous crisis in their personal
relationship.
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